t^^^^^r^^^^ 


dftucatfonai 


EDITED  BY  HENRY  SUZZALLO 

PROFESSOR    OF  THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF  EDUCATION 
TEACHERS   COLLEGE,   COLUMBIA    UNIVERSITY 


SELF-CULTIVATION 
IN  ENGLISH 

o 

BY 

GEORGE  HERBERT  PALMER 

ALFORD  PROFESSOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
HARVARD   UNIVERSITY 


HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 

BOSTON,  NEW  YORK  AND  CHICAGO 

tfilirrjifce  prcjstf,  Cambribge 


COPYRIGHT,  1908,   BY  GEORGE  HERBERT  PALMER 
COPYRIGHT,  1909,  BY  HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


Copyright.  1897,  by  Tbomu  Y.  Crowell  &  Company 


INTRODUCTION 

ENGLISH  as  a  school  subject  grows  more  impor- 
tant in  the  education  of  our  youth.  Its  place  in 
our  schools  begins  to  be  as  large  as  its  position 
in  every-day  life.  And  gradually  the  aims  pur- 
sued by  the  school  in  English  teaching  conform 
to  those  practical  and  artistic  purposes  which  are 
usually  associated  with  our  spoken  and  written 
language. 

Educational  reform  and  English  study 

The  teaching  of  English  reflects  the  important 
movements  for  the  reform  of  our  schools.  There 
is,  indeed,  no  better  index  of  our  substantial 
achievements  in  modern  educational  affairs  than 
those  modifications  in  English  instruction  which 
are  now  in  progress.  The  passing  of  a  technical 
and  barren  study  of  grammatical  and  rhetorical 
forms  is  part  of  the  general  tendency  toward  the 
subordination  of  formal  subjects.  The  introduc- 
iii 


INTRODUCTION 

tion  of  classic  material  in  reading  books  and  the 
study  of  unmarred  literary  wholes  mark  the  de- 
termined effort  to  enrich  the  school  curriculum 
with  content  significant  alike  to  the  child  and  to 
the  society  in  which  he  lives.  The  increased  em- 
phasis on  English  composition  as  an  instrument 
for  the  communication  or  expression  of  the 
child's  thought  is  a  response  to  the  same  ideals 
of  educational  method  which  are  giving  manual 
training  and  the  other  expressive  arts  a  respect- 
able position  in  the  school  curriculum. 

Changes  in  the  spirit  of  English  instruction 

The  influence  of  educational  reform  on  Eng- 
lish instruction  extends  beyond  specific  changes 
in  the  subject  matter  and  methods  used  in 
schools.  It  causes  wide-sweeping  modifications 
in  the  whole  spirit  of  our  English  teaching. 
Slowly  but  certainly  it  dawns  on  us  that  a  mere 
study  of  the  formalities  of  language  does  not  in- 
sure an  enjoyment  of  literature  or  a  command  of 
speech.  In  place  of  the  old  and  barren  insistence 
upon  a  half-scientific  analysis  of  language  which 
leaves  us  conscious  only  of  the  dissected  parts 
iv 


INTRODUCTION 

of  language,  modern  teaching  sets  up  two  new 
major  purposes  for  English  study,  —  to  develop 
an  appreciation  of  the  best  English  literature, 
and  to  train  the  power  of  effective  expression 
through  language. 

The  difficulty  of  training  linguistic  power 

It  is  the  attainment  of  this  latter  end,  the  im- 
proved use  of  English  as  an  instrument  of  expres- 
sion, that  presents  the  largest  difficulties  to  the 
teacher.  Most  of  the  current  practices  of  the 
school  have  been  developed  mainly  with  refer- 
ence to  giving  the  child  the  facts  of  our  organized 
knowledge.  Until  recently,  its  methods  have  not 
been  concerned  with  training  him  in  the  applica- 
tion or  expression  of  the  thoughts  thus  attained. 
Hence  the  weakness  of  the  school  in  teaching 
children  to  speak  and  write  good  English  is  con- 
spicuous, and  hence  the  need  to  improve  the 
conditions  that  underlie  the  acquirement  of  clear 
and  forceful  expression  and  to  develop  new 
modes  of  transmitting  the  technique  of  English 
speech  and  writing. 


INTRODUCTION 

Conditions  have  been  unfavorable 

The  schools  of  to-day  find  it  difficult  to  under- 
take the  training  of  literary  power  because  un- 
favorable conditions  persist  from  the  schools  of 
a  century  ago.  Time  was  when  any  deliberate 
effort  to  teach  children  to  write  in  school  would 
have  largely  failed  because  there  was  no  clear 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  there  can  be  no  cul- 
tivation of  the  power  to  use  English  without  an 
adequate  development  of  enriched  thought  to  be 
expressed.  That  older  school  which  was  mainly 
concerned  with  the  formal  subjects  —  the  three 
R's,  grammar,  rhetoric,  and  the  like — gave  chil- 
dren little  that  could  be  the  basis  of  real,  written 
composition.  True  expression  is  always  self-ex- 
pression, and  for  self-expression  more  is  required 
than  the  committing  to  memory  of  ideas.  The 
schools  of  that  other  day,  in  so  far  as  they  con- 
tributed to  the  knowledge  of  children,  imposed  it 
upon  them  authoritatively,  without  any  special 
consideration  of  their  interests  or  needs.  What 
the  school  asked  children  to  express,  they  had 
no  desire  to  express ;  and  what  they  might  choose 
vi 


INTRODUCTION 

to  say,  the  school  regarded  as  trivial.  Hence  our 
poverty  of  literary  power  in  the  schools  has  de- 
scended to  us  along  with  dull  courses  of  study 
and  dogmatic  methods  of  teaching. 

Conditions  grow  more  favorable 

The  newer  movements  in  education  tend  to 
establish  conditions  which  are  a  striking  contrast 
to  those  of  the  past.  The  course  of  study  has 
been  enriched  by  the  addition  of  new  subjects 
and  by  the  vitalization  of  old  studies.  First-hand 
contact  with  the  natural  world  and  with  human 
life  is  guaranteed  as  never  before.  Much  of  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge  is  closely  connected 
with  active  ways  of  learning.  Above  all,  there  is 
a  sympathy  for  children  which  recognizes  that 
true  education  must  start  with  the  vital  impulses 
of  child-life.  Under  such  an  order  children  have 
something  to  say,  and  they  want  to  say  it.  And 
teachers  are  willing  to  listen  or  read,  as  the  case 
may  be,  knowing  that  the  forces  which  make  for 
literary  power  are  there,  ready  to  be  restrained 
or  refined  as  the  canons  of  good  taste  and  clear 
expression  demand. 

vii 


INTRODUCTION 

Methods  of  improving  literary  power 

Now  that  we  have  our  children  speaking  and 
writing  we  need  to  know  how  we  can  improve 
those  crude  talents  which  instinct  and  a  favor- 
able school  life  permit.  The  problem  is  a  new 
one  for  the  pedagogue,  for  the  transmission  of 
the  power  to  write  is  very  different  from  the 
transmission  of  grammatical  or  rhetorical  facts. 
Indeed,  it  may  be  said  that  we  cannot  transmit 
the  power  of  using  English.  In  the  last  analysis, 
good  English  usage  is  a  matter  of  self-cultiva- 
tion. The  teacher,  however,  can  supervise  the 
process  of  self-development.  By  insuring  a  rich 
thought -life,  by  fostering  opportunities  for  its 
expression,  by  encouraging  worthy  effort,  by 
providing  practice  for  right  speech,  and  by  attend- 
ing to  the  hundred  other  details  which  are  a 
necessary  care,  the  teacher  may  help  the  present 
generation  to  achieve  the  ability  to  use  with 
force  and  grace  their  mother  tongue  that  has 
come  to  its  present  power  and  beauty  only  after 
many  generations  of  refined  development.  But 
there  can  be  no  effective  self-cultivation  in  Eng- 
viii 


INTRODUCTION 

lish,  or  helpful  direction  of  the  same,  without  some 
knowledge  of  the  technical  processes  by  which 
literary  power  is  to  be  attained.  There  must  be 
some  knowledge  of  the  way  the  deed  is  done, 
some  hint  of  the  factors  that  make  for  good 
expression. 

A  guide  for  students  and  teacher 

With  the  above  need  in  mind,  there  is  here 
presented  an  essay  on  "  Self-Cultivation  in  Eng- 
lish." At  once  a  clear  analysis  of  the  fundamen- 
tal elements  in  the  noble  use  of  language  and 
a  fine  example  of  the  use  of  good  English,  it 
is  offered  to  the  public  with  a  sense  of  its  double 
worth.  While  it  is  strongly  commended  to  stu- 
dents in  our  higher  schools  as  a  guide  and  model 
for  them  in  their  effort  to  improve  their  use  of 
English,  it  is  primarily  included  within  this  series 
in  order  that  teachers  and  parents  may  have  its 
assistance  in  focusing  their  attention  upon  those 
matters  of  large  importance  in  speaking  and  writ- 
ing which  must  be  the  care  of  all  who  would 
make  of  their  own  expression  a  worthy  model 
and  guide  for  others. 

DC 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN 
ENGLISH 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN 
ENGLISH 

ENGLISH  study  has  four  aims :  the  mastery  of 
our  language  as  a  science,  as  a  history,  as  a  joy, 
and  as  a  tool.  I  am  concerned  with  but  one,  the 
mastery  of  it  as  a  tool.  Philology  and  grammar 
present  it  as  a  science ;  the  one  attempting  to 
follow  its  words,  the  other  its  sentences,  through 
all  the  intricacies  of  their  growth,  and  so  to  mani- 
fest laws  which  lie  hidden  in  these  airy  products 
no  less  than  in  the  moving  stars  or  the  myriad 
flowers  of  spring.  Fascinating  and  important  as 
all  this  is,  I  do  not  recommend  it  here.  For  I 
want  to  call  attention  only  to  that  sort  of  Eng- 
lish study  which  can  be  carried  on  without  any 
large  apparatus  of  books.  For  a  reason  similar, 
though  less  cogent,  I  do  not  urge  historical 
study.  Probably  the  current  of  English  litera- 
ture is  more  attractive  through  its  continuity 
than  that  of  any  other  nation.  Notable  works  in 
verse  and  prose  have  appeared  in  long  succession, 
i 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

and  without  gaps  intervening,  in  a  way  that 
would  be  hard  to  parallel  in  any  other  language 
known  to  man.  A  bounteous  endowment  this 
for  every  English  speaker,  and  one  which  should 
stimulate  us  to  trace  the  marvelous  and  close- 
linked  progress  from  the  times  of  the  Saxons  to 
those  of  Tennyson  and  Kipling.  Literature,  too, 
has  this  advantage  over  every  other  species  of 
art  study,  that  everybody  can  examine  the  origi- 
nal masterpieces  and  not  depend  on  reproduc- 
tions, as  in  the  cases  of  painting,  sculpture,  and 
architecture  ;  or  on  intermediate  interpretation, 
as  in  the  case  of  music.  To-day  most  of  these 
masterpieces  can  be  bought  for  a  trifle,  and  even 
a  poor  man  can  follow  through  centuries  the 
thoughts  of  his  ancestors.  But  even  so,  ready  of 
access  as  it  is,  English  can  be  studied  as  a  his- 
tory only  at  the  cost  of  solid  time  and  continuous 
attention,  much  more  time  than  the  majority  of 
those  I  am  addressing  can  afford.  By  most  of  us 
our  mighty  literature  cannot  be  taken  in  its  con- 
tinuous current,  the  later  stretches  proving  inter- 
esting through  relation  with  the  earlier.  It  must 
be  taken  fragmentarily,  if  at  all,  the  attention 

2 


IN  ENGLISH 

delaying  on  those  parts  only  which  offer  the 
greatest  beauty  or  promise  the  best  exhilaration. 
In  other  words,  English  may  be  possible  as  a  joy 
where  it  is  not  possible  as  a  history.  In  the  end- 
less wealth  which  our  poetry,  story,  essay,  and 
drama  afford,  every  disposition  may  find  its 
appropriate  nutriment,  correction,  or  solace.  He 
is  unwise,  however  busy,  who  does  not  have  his 
loved  authors,  veritable  friends  with  whom  he 
takes  refuge  in  the  intervals  of  work,  and  by 
whose  intimacy  he  enlarges,  refines,  sweetens, 
and  emboldens  his  own  limited  existence.  Yet 
the  fact  that  English  as  a  joy  must  largely  be 
conditioned  by  individual  taste  prevents  me  from 
offering  general  rules  for  its  pursuits.  The  road 
which  leads  one  man  straight  to  enjoyment  leads 
another  to  tedium.  In  jail  literary  enjoyment 
there  is  something  incalculable,  something  way- 
ward, eluding  the  precision  of  rule  and  rendering 
inexact  the  precepts  of  him  who  would  point  out 
the  path  to  it.  While  I  believe  that  many  sug- 
gestions may  be  made,  useful  to  the  young  en- 
joyer,  and  promotive  of  his  wise  vagrancy,  I 
shall  not  undertake  here  the  complicated  task  of 
3 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

offering  them.  Let  enjoyment  go,  let  history  go, 
let  science  go,  and  still  English  remains  —  Eng- 
lish as  a  tool.  Every  hour  our  language  is  an 
engine  for  communicating  with  others,  every 
instant  for  fashioning  the  thoughts  of  our  own 
minds.  I  want  to  call  attention  to  the  means  of 
mastering  this  curious  and  essential  tool,  and  to 
lead  every  one  who  hears  me  to  become  discon- 
tented with  his  employment  of  it. 

The  importance  of  literary  power  needs  no 
long  argument.  Everybody  acknowledges  it,  and 
sees  that  without  it  all  other  human  faculties 
are  maimed.  Shakespeare  says  that  "Time  in- 
sults o'er  dull  and  speechless  tribes."  It  and  all 
who  live  in  it  insult  over  the  speechless  person. 
So  mutually  dependent  are  we  that  on  our  swift 
and  full  communication  with  one  another  is 
staked  the  success  of  almost  every  scheme  we 
form.  He  who  can  explain  himself  may  com- 
mand what  he  wants.  He  who  cannot  is  left  to 
the  poverty  of  individual  resource ;  for  men  do 
what  we  desire  only  when  persuaded.  The  per- 
suasive and  explanatory  tongue  is,  therefore,  one 
of  the  chief  levers  of  life.  Its  leverage  is  felt 
4 


IN  ENGLISH 

within  us  as  well  as  without,  for  expression  and 
thought  are  integrally  bound  together.  We  do 
not  first  possess  completed  thoughts,  and  then 
express  them.  The  very  formation  of  the  out- 
ward product  extends,  sharpens,  enriches  the 
mind  which  produces,  so  that  he  who  gives  forth 
little,  after  a  time  is  likely  enough  to  discover 
that  he  has  little  to  give  forth.  By  expression, 
too,  we  may  carry  our  benefits  and  our  names  to 
a  far  generation.  This  durable  character  of  fra- 
gile language  puts  a  wide  difference  of  worth 
between  it  and  some  of  the  other  great  objects 
of  desire,  —  health,  wealth,  and  beauty,  for  ex- 
ample. These  are  notoriously  liable  to  accident. 
We  tremble  while  we  have  them.  But  literary 
power,  once  ours,  is  more  likely  than  any  other 
possession  to  be  ours  always.  It  perpetuates  and 
enlarges  itself  by  the  very  fact  of  its  existence, 
and  perishes  only  with  the  decay  of  the  man 
himself.  For  this  reason,  because  more  than 
health,  wealth,  and  beauty,  literary  style  may  be 
called  the  man,  good  judges  have  found  in  it  the 
final  test  of  culture,  and  have  said  that  he  and  he 
alone,  is  a  well-educated  person  who  uses  his  lan- 
5  • 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

guage  with  power  and  beauty.  The  supreme  and 
ultimate  product  of  civilization,  it  has  been  well 
said,  is  two  or  three  persons  talking  together  in 
a  room.  Between  ourselves  and  our  language 
there  accordingly  springs  up  an  association  pe- 
culiarly close.  We  are  as  sensitive  to  criticism 
of  our  speech  as  of  our  manners.  The  young  man 
looks  up  with  awe  to  him  who  has  written  a  book, 
as  already  half  divine  ;  and  the  graceful  speaker 
is  a  universal  object  of  envy. 

But  the  very  fact  that  literary  endowment  is 
immediately  recognized  and  eagerly  envied  has 
induced  a  strange  illusion  in  regard  to  it.  It  is 
supposed  to  be  something  mysterious,  innate  in 
him  who  possesses  it,  and  quite  out  of  the  reach 
of  him  who  has  it  not.  The  very  contrary  is  the 
fact.  No  human  employment  is  more  free  and  cal- 
culable than  the  winning  of  language.  Undoubtedly 
there  are  natural  aptitudes  for  it,  as  there  are  for 
farming,  seamanship,  or  being  a  good  husband. 
But  nowhere  is  straight  work  more  effective.  Per- 
sistence, care,  discriminating  observation,  inge- 
nuity, refusal  to  lose  heart, — traits  which  in  every 
other  occupation  tend  toward  excellence, — tend 
6 


IN  ENGLISH 

toward  it  here  with  special  security.  Whoever  goes 
to  his  grave  with  bad  English  in  his  mouth  has  no 
one  to  blame  but  himself  for  the  disagreeable 
taste ;  for  if  faulty  speech  can  be  inherited,  it  can 
be  exterminated  too.  I  hope  to  point  out  some  of 
the  methods  of  substituting  good  English  for  bad. 
And  since  my  space  is  brief,  and  I  wish  to  be 
remembered,!  throw  what  I  have  to  say  into  the 
form  of  four  simple  precepts,  which,  if  pertina- 
ciously obeyed,  will,  I  believe,  give  anybody  effec- 
tive mastery  of  English  as  a  tool. 

First,  then,  "Look  well  to  your  speech."  It  is 
commonly  supposed  that  when  a  man  seeks  lit- 
erary power  he  goes  to  his  room  and  plans  an 
article  for  the  press.  But  this  is  to  begin  literary 
culture  at  the  wrong  end.  We  speak  a  hundred 
times  for  every  once  we  write.  The  busiest  writer 
produces  little  more  than  a  volume  a  year, 
not  so  much  as  his  talk  would  amount  to  in  a 
week.  Consequently  through  speech  it  is  usually 
decided  whether  a  man  is  to  have  command  of 
his  language  or  not.  If  he  is  slovenly  in  his 
ninety-nine  cases  of  talking,  he  can  seldom  pull 
himself  up  to  strength  and  exactitude  in  the 
7 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

hundredth  case  of  writing.  A  person  is  made  in 
one  piece,  and  the  same  being  runs  through  a 
multitude  of  performances.  Whether  words  are 
uttered  on  paper  or  to  the  air,  the  effect  on  the 
utterer  is  the  same.  Vigor  or  feebleness  results 
according  as  energy  or  slackness  has  been  in 
command.  I  know  that  certain  adaptations  to  a 
new  field  are  often  necessary.  A  good  speaker 
may  find  awkwardness  in  himself  when  he  comes 
to  write,  a  good  writer  when  he  speaks.  And 
certainly  cases  occur  where  a  man  exhibits 
distinct  strength  in  one  of  the  two,  speaking  or 
writing,  and  not  in  the  other.  But  such  cases  are 
rare.  As  a  rule,  language  once  within  our  con- 
trol can  be  employed  for  oral  or  for  written  pur- 
poses. And  since  the  opportunities  for  oral  prac- 
tice enormously  outbalance  those  for  written, 
it  is  the  oral  which  are  chiefly  significant  in  the 
development  of  literary  power.  We  rightly  say 
of  the  accomplished  writer  that  he  shows  a  mas- 
tery of  his  own  tongue. 

This  predominant  influence  of  speech  marks 
nearly  all  great  epochs  of  literature.    The  Ho- 
meric poems  are  addressed  to  the  ear,  not  to  the 
8 


IN  ENGLISH 

eye.  It  is  doubtful  if  Homer  knew  writing,  cer- 
tain that  he  knew  profoundly  every  quality  of 
the  tongue, — veracity,  vividness,  shortness  of 
sentence,  simplicity  of  thought,  obligation  to 
insure  swift  apprehension.  Writing  and  rigidity 
are  apt  to  go  together.  In  these  smooth-slipping 
verses  one  catches  everywhere  the  voice.  So, 
too,  the  aphorisms  of  Hesiod  might  naturally 
pass  from  mouth  to  mouth,  and  the  stories  of 
Herodotus  be  told  by  an  old  man  at  the  fireside. 
Early  Greek  literature  is  plastic  and  garrulous. 
Its  distinctive  glory  is  that  it  contains  no  literary 
note;  that  it  gives  forth  human  feeling  not 
in  conventional  arrangement,  but  with  apparent 
spontaneity  —  in  short,  that  it  is  speech  litera- 
ture, not  book  literature.  And  the  same  ten- 
dency continued  long  among  the  Greeks.  At  the 
culmination  of  their  power,  the  drama  was  their 
chief  literary  form,  —  the  drama,  which  is  but 
speech  ennobled,  connected,  clarified.  Plato  too, 
following  the  dramatic  precedent  and  the  pre- 
cedent of  his  talking  master,  accepted  conversa- 
tion as  his  medium  for  philosophy,  and  imparted 
to  it  the  vivacity,  ease,  waywardness  even,  which 
9 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

the  best  conversation  exhibits.  Nor  was  the  ex- 
perience of  the  Greeks  peculiar.  Our  literature 
shows  a  similar  tendency.  Its  bookish  times  are 
its  decadent  times,  its  talking  times  its  glory. 
Chaucer,  like  Herodotus,  is  a  story-teller,  and 
follows  the  lead  of  those  who  on  the  Continent 
entertained  courtly  circles  with  pleasant  tales. 
Shakespeare  and  his  fellows  in  the  spacious  times 
of  great  Elizabeth  did  not  concern  themselves 
with  publication.  Marston,  in  one  of  his  prefaces, 
thinks  it  necessary  to  apologize  for  putting  his 
piece  in  print,  and  says  he  would  not  have  done 
such  a  thing  if  unscrupulous  persons,  hearing  the 
play  at  the  theatre,  had  not  already  printed  cor- 
rupt versions  of  it.  Even  the  "  Queen  Anne's 
men,"  far  removed  though  they  are  from  any- 
thing dramatic,  still  shape  their  ideals  of  litera- 
ture by  demands  of  speech.  The  essays  of  the 
"Spectator,"  the  poems  of  Pope,  are  the  remarks 
of  a  cultivated  gentleman  at  an  evening  party. 
Here  is  the  brevity,  the  good  taste,  the  light 
touch,  the  neat  epigram,  the  avoidance  of  what- 
ever might  stir  passion,  controversy,  or  laborious 
thought,  which  characterize  the  conversation  of 
10 


IN  ENGLISH 

a  well-bred  man.  Indeed,  it  is  hard  to  see  how 
any  literature  can  be  long  vital  which  is  based 
on  the  thought  of  a  book  and  not  on  that  of 
living  utterance.  Unless  the  speech  notion  is 
uppermost,  words  will  not  run  swiftly  to  their 
mark.  They  delay  in  delicate  phrasings  while 
naturalness  and  a  sense  of  reality  disappear. 
Women  are  the  best  talkers.  I  sometimes  please 
myself  with  noticing  that  three  of  the  greatest 
periods  of  English  literature  coincide  with  the 
reigns  of  the  three  English  queens. 

Fortunate  it  is,  then,  that  self-cultivation  in 
the  use  of  English  must  chiefly  come  through 
speech ;  because  we  are  always  speaking,  what- 
ever else  we  do.  In  opportunities  for  acquiring 
a  mastery  of  language,  the  poorest  and  busiest 
are  at  no  large  disadvantage  as  compared  with 
the  leisured  rich.  It  is  true  the  strong  impulse 
which  comes  from  the  suggestion  and  approval 
of  society  may  in  some  cases  be  absent,  but  this 
can  be  compensated  by  the  sturdy  purpose  of  the 
learner.  A  recognition  of  the  beauty  of  well- 
ordered  words,  a  strong  desire,  patience  under 
discouragements,  and  promptness  in  counting 
ii 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

every  occasion  as  of  consequence,  —  these  are 
the  simple  agencies  which  sweep  one  on  to 
power.  Watch  your  speech,  then.  That  is  all 
which  is  needed.  Only  it  is  desirable  to  know 
what  qualities  of  speech  to  watch  for.  I  find 
three,  —  accuracy,  audacity,  and  range,  —  and  I 
will  say  a  few  words  about  each. 

Obviously,  good  English  is  exact  English. 
Our  words  should  fit  our  thoughts  like  a  glove, 
and  be  neither  too  wide  nor  too  tight.  If  too 
wide,  they  will  include  much  vacuity  beside  the 
intended  matter.  If  too  tight,  they  will  check  the 
strong  grasp.  Of  the  two  dangers,  looseness  is  by 
far  the  greater.  There  are  people  who  say  what 
they  mean  with  such  a  naked  precision  that 
nobody  not  familiar  with  the  subject  can  quickly 
catch  the  sense.  George  Herbert  and  Emerson 
strain  the  attention  of  many.  But  niggardly  and 
angular  speakers  are  rare.  Too  frequently  words 
signify  nothing  in  particular.  They  are  merely 
thrown  out  in  a  certain  direction,  to  report  a 
vague  and  undetermined  meaning  or  even  a  gen- 
eral emotion.  The  first  business  of  every  one 
who  would  train  himself  in  language  is  to  artic- 
12 


IN  ENGLISH 

ulate  his  thought,  to  know  definitely  what  he 
wishes  to  say,  and  then  to  pick  those  words 
which  compel  the  hearer  to  think  of  this  and 
only  this.  For  such  a  purpose  two  words  are 
often  better  than  three.  The  fewer  the  words, 
the  more  pungent  the  impression.  Brevity  is  the 
soul  not  simply  of  a  jest,  but  of  wit  in  its  finest 
sense  where  it  is  identical  with  wisdom.  He  who 
can  put  a  great  deal  into  a  little  is  the  master. 
Since  firm  texture  is  what  is  wanted,  not  em- 
broidery or  superposed  ornament,  beauty  has 
been  well  defined  as  the  purgation  of  superflui- 
ties. And  certainly  many  a  paragraph  might 
have  its  beauty  brightened  by  letting  quiet 
words  take  the  place  of  its  loud  words,  omitting 
its  "  verys,"  and  striking  out  its  purple  patches 
of  "fine  writing."  Here  is  Ben  Jonson's  descrip- 
tion of  Bacon's  language  :  "There  happened  in 
my  time  one  noble  speaker  who  was  full  of  grav- 
ity in  his  speech.  No  man  ever  spoke  more 
neatly,  more  pressly,  more  weightily,  or  suffered 
less  emptiness,  less  idleness,  in  what  he  uttered. 
No  member  of  his  speech  but  consisted  of  his 
own  graces.  His  hearers  could  not  cough  or 
13 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

look  aside  without  loss.  He  commanded  when 
he  spoke,  and  had  his  judges  angry  or  pleased  at 
his  discretion."  Such  are  the  men  who  command, 
men  who  speak  "neatly  and  pressly."  But  to 
gain  such  precision  is  toilsome  business.  While 
we  are  in  training  for  it,  no  word  must  unper- 
mittedly  pass  the  portal  of  the  teeth.  Something 
like  what  we  mean  must  never  be  counted  equiv- 
alent to  what  we  mean.  And  if  we  are  not  sure 
of  our  meaning  or  of  our  word,  we  must  pause 
until  we  are  sure.  Accuracy  does  not  come  of 
itself.  For  persons  who  can  use  several  lan- 
guages, capital  practice  in  acquiring  it  can  be 
had  by  translating  from  one  language  to  another 
and  seeing  that  the  entire  sense  is  carried  over. 
Those  who  have  only  their  native  speech  will 
find  it  profitable  often  to  attempt  definitions  of 
the  common  words  they  use.  Inaccuracy  will 
not  stand  up  against  the  habit  of  definition. 
Dante  boasted  that  no  rhythmic  exigency  had 
ever  made  him  say  what  he  did  not  mean.  We 
heedless  and  unintending  speakers,  under  no 
exigency  of  rhyme  or  reason,  say  what  we  mean 
but  seldom,  and  still  more  seldom  mean  what  we 
14 


IN  ENGLISH 

say.  To  hold  our  thoughts  and  words  in  signifi- 
cant adjustment  requires  unceasing  conscious- 
ness, a  perpetual  determination  not  to  tell  lies ; 
for  of  course  every  inaccuracy  is  a  bit  of  un- 
truthfulness.  We  have  something  in  mind,  yet 
convey  something  else  to  our  hearer.  And  no 
moral  purpose  will  save  us  from  this  untruthful- 
ness  unless  that  purpose  is  sufficient  to  inspire 
the  daily  drill  which  brings  the  power  to  be  true. 
Again  and  again  we  are  shut  up  to  evil  because 
we  have  not  acquired  the  ability  of  goodness. 

But  after  all,  I  hope  that  nobody  who  hears 
me  will  quite  agree.  There  is  something  enervat- 
ing in  conscious  care.  Necessary  as  it  is  in 
shaping  our  purposes,  if  allowed  too  direct  and 
exclusive  control  consciousness  breeds  hesitation 
and  feebleness.  Action  is  not  excellent,  at  least, 
until  spontaneous.  In  piano-playing  we  begin  by 
picking  out  each  separate  note  ;  but  we  do  not 
call  the  result  music  until  we  play  our  notes  by 
the  handful,  heedless  how  each  is  formed.  And  so 
it  is  everywhere.  Consciously  selective  conduct 
is  elementary  and  inferior.  People  distrust  it,  or 
rather  they  distrust  him  who  exhibits  it.  If  any- 
15 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

body  talking  to  us  visibly  studies  his  words,  we 
turn  away.  What  he  says  may  be  well  enough 
as  school  exercise,  but  it  is  not  conversation. 
Accordingly  if  we  would  have  our  speech  forci- 
ble, we  shall  need  to  put  into  it  quite  as  much 
of  audacity  as  we  do  of  precision,  terseness,  or 
simplicity.  Accuracy  alone  is  not  a  thing  to 
be  sought,  but  accuracy  and  dash.  It  was  said 
of  Fox,  the  English  orator  and  statesman,  that 
he  was  accustomed  to  throw  himself  headlong 
into  the  middle  of  a  sentence,  trusting  to  God 
Almighty  to  get  him  out.  So  must  we  speak. 
We  must  not,  before  beginning  a  sentence,  de- 
cide what  the  end  shall  be ;  for  if  we  do,  nobody 
will  care  to  hear  that  end.  At  the  beginning,  it 
is  the  beginning  which  claims  the  attention  of 
both  speaker  and  listener  and  trepidation  about 
going  on  will  mar  all.  We  must  give  our  thought 
its  head,  and  not  drive  it  with  too  tight  a  rein, 
or  grow  timid  when  it  begins  to  prance  a  bit. 
Of  course  we  must  retain  coolness  in  courage, 
applying  the  results  of  our  previous  discipline  in 
accuracy ;  but  we  need  not  move  so  slowly  as  to 
become  formal.  Pedantry  is  worse  than  blunder- 
16 


IN  ENGLISH 

ing.  If  we  care  for  grace  and  flexible  beauty  of 
language,  we  must  learn  to  let  our  thought  run. 
Would  it,  then,  be  too  much  of  an  Irish  bull  to 
say  that  in  acquiring  English  we  need  to  culti- 
vate spontaneity  ?  The  uncultivated  kind  is  not 
worth  much  ;  it  is  wild  and  haphazard  stuff,  un- 
adjusted to  its  uses.  On  the  other  hand,  no 
speech  is  of  much  account,  however  just,  which 
lacks  the  element  of  courage.  Accuracy  and 
dash,  then,  the  combination  of  the  two,  must  be 
our  difficult  aim ;  and  we  must  not  rest  satisfied 
so  long  as  either  dwells  with  us  alone. 

But  are  the  two  so  hostile  as  they  at  first 
appear?  Or  can,  indeed,  the  first  be  obtained 
without  the  aid  of  the  second  ?  Supposing  we  are 
convinced  that  words  possess  no  value  in  them- 
selves, and  are  correct  or  incorrect  only  as  they 
truly  report  experience,  we  shall  feel  ourselves 
impelled  in  the  mere  interest  of  accuracy  to 
choose  them  freshly,  and  to  put  them  together 
in  ways  in  which  they  never  cooperated  before, 
so  as  to  set  forth  with  distinctness  that  which 
just  we,  not  other  people,  have  seen  or  felt.  The 
reason  why  we  do  not  naturally  have  this  daring 
17 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

exactitude  is  probably  twofold.  We  let  our  ex- 
periences be  blurred,  not  observing  sharply,  or 
knowing  with  any  minuteness  what  we  are  think- 
ing about ;  and  so  there  is  no  individuality  in 
our  language.  And  then,  besides,  we  are  terror- 
ized by  custom,  and  inclined  to  adjust  what  we 
would  say  to  what  others  have  said  before.  The 
cure  for  the  first  of  these  troubles  is  to  keep 
our  eye  on  our  object,  instead  of  on  our  listener 
or  ourselves ;  and  for  the  second,  to  learn  to  rate 
the  expressiveness  of  language  more  highly  than 
its  correctness.  The  opposite  of  this,  the  dispo- 
sition to  set  correctness  above  expressiveness, 
produces  that  peculiarly  vulgar  diction  known 
as  "school-ma'am  English,"  in  which  for  the 
sake  of  a  dull  accord  with  usage  all  the  pictur- 
esque, imaginative,  and  forceful  employment  of 
words  is  sacrificed.  Of  course  we  must  use  words 
so  that  people  can  understand  them,  and  under- 
stand them,  too,  with  ease ;  but  this  once  granted, 
let  our  language  be  our  own,  obedient  to  our 
special  needs.  "Whenever,"  says  Thomas  Jef- 
ferson, "by  small  grammatical  negligences  the 
energy  of  an  idea  can  be  condensed  or  a  word 
18 


IN  ENGLISH 

be  made  to  stand  for  a  sentence,  I  hold  gram- 
matical rigor  in  contempt."  "Young man,"  said 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  to  one  who  was  point- 
ing out  grammatical  errors  in  a  sermon  of  his, 
"when  the  English  language  gets  in  my  way, 
it  doesn't  stand  a  chance."  No  man  can  be 
convincing,  writer  or  speaker,  who  is  afraid  to 
send  his  words  wherever  they  may  best  follow 
his  meaning,  and  this  with  but  little  regard  to 
whether  any  other  person's  words  have  ever  been 
there  before.  In  assessing  merit,  let  us  not  stupefy 
ourselves  with  using  negative  standards.  What 
stamps  a  man  as  great  is  not  freedom  from  faults, 
but  abundance  of  powers. 

Such  audacious  accuracy,  however,  distinguish- 
ing as  it  does  noble  speech  from  commonplace 
speech,  can  be  practised  only  by  him  who  has 
a  wide  range  of  words.  Our  ordinary  range  is 
absurdly  narrow.  It  is  important,  therefore,  for 
anybody  who  would  cultivate  himself  in  English 
to  make  strenuous  and  systematic  efforts  to  en- 
large his  vocabulary.  Our  dictionaries  contain 
more  than  a  hundred  thousand  words.  The  aver- 
age speaker  employs  about  three  thousand.  Is 
19 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

this  because  ordinary  people  have  only  three  or 
four  thousand  things  to  say  ?  Not  at  all.  It  is 
simply  due  to  dullness.  Listen  to  the  average 
school-boy.  He  has  a  dozen  or  two  nouns,  half 
a  dozen  verbs,  three  or  four  adjectives,  and 
enough  conjunctions  and  prepositions  to  stick  the 
conglomerate  together.  This  ordinary  speech 
deserves  the  description  which  Hobbes  gave  to 
his  "  State  of  Nature,"  that  "  it  is  solitary,  poor, 
nasty,  brutish,  and  short."  The  fact  is,  we  fall 
into  the  way  of  thinking  that  the  wealthy  words 
are  for  others,  and  that  they  do  not  belong  to  us. 
We  are  like  those  who  have  received  a  vast  in- 
heritance, but  who  persist  in  the  inconveniences 
of  hard  beds,  scanty  food,  rude  clothing,  who 
never  travel,  and  who  limit  their  purchases  to 
the  bleak  necessities  of  life.  Ask  such  people 
why  they  endure  niggardly  living  while  wealth  in 
plenty  is  lying  in  the  bank,  and  they  can  only 
answer  that  they  have  never  learned  how  to 
spend.  But  this  is  worth  learning.  Milton  used 
eight  thousand  words,  Shakespeare  fifteen  thou- 
sand. We  have  all  the  subjects  to  talk  about 
that  these  early  speakers  had  ;  and  in  addition, 
20 


IN  ENGLISH 

we  have  bicycles  and  sciences  and  strikes  and 
political  combinations  and  all  the  complicated 
living  of  the  modern  world. 

Why,  then,  do  we  hesitate  to  swell  our  words 
to  meet  our  needs  ?  It  is  a  nonsense  question. 
There  is  no  reason.  We  are  simply  lazy ;  too 
lazy  to  make  ourselves  comfortable.  We  let  our 
vocabularies  be  limited,  and  get  along  rawly 
without  the  refinements  of  human  intercourse, 
without  refinements  in  our  own  thoughts  ;  for 
thoughts  are  almost  as  dependent  on  words  as 
words  on  thoughts.  For  example,  all  exaspera- 
tions we  lump  together  as  "aggravating,"  not 
considering  whether  they  may  not  rather  be  dis- 
pleasing, annoying,  offensive,  disgusting,  irritat- 
ing, or  even  maddening;  and  without  observ- 
ing, too,  that  in  our  reckless  usage  we  have 
burned  up  a  word  which  might  be  convenient 
when  we  should  need  to  mark  some  shading  of 
the  word  "increase."  Like  the  bad  cook,  we 
seize  the  frying-pan  whenever  we  need  to  fry, 
broil,  roast,  or  stew,  and  then  we  wonder  why  all 
our  dishes  taste  alike  while  in  the  next  house 
the  food  is  appetizing.  It  is  all  unnecessary. 
21 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

Enlarge  the  vocabulary.  Let  any  one  who  wants 
to  see  himself  grow,  resolve  to  adopt  two  new 
words  each  week.  It  will  not  be  long  before  the 
endless  and  enchanting  variety  of  the  world  will 
begin  to  reflect  itself  in  his  speech,  and  in  his 
mind  as  well.  I  know  that  when  we  use  a  word 
for  the  first  time  we  are  startled,  as  if  a  fire- 
cracker went  off  in  our  neighborhood.  We  look 
about  hastily  to  see  if  any  one  has  noticed.  But 
finding  that  no  one  has,  we  may  be  emboldened. 
A  word  used  three  times  slips  off  the  tongue 
with  entire  naturalness.  Then  it  is  ours  forever, 
and  with  it  some  phase  of  life  which  had  been 
lacking  hitherto.  For  each  word  presents  its  own 
point  of  view,  discloses  a  special  aspect  of  things, 
reports  some  little  importance  not  otherwise  con- 
veyed, and  so  contributes  its  small  emancipation 
to  our  tied-up  minds  and  tongues. 

But  a  brief  warning  may  be  necessary  to  make 
my  meaning  clear.  In  urging  the  addition  of  new 
words  to  our  present  poverty-stricken  stock,  I 
am  far  from  suggesting  that  we  should  seek  out 
strange,  technical,  or  inflated  expressions,  which 
do  not  appear  in  ordinary  conversation.  The  very 
22 


IN  ENGLISH 

opposite  is  my  aim.  I  would  put  every  man  who 
is  now  employing  a  diction  merely  local  and  per- 
sonal in  command  of  the  approved  resources  of 
the  English  language.  Our  poverty  usually  comes 
through  provinciality,  through  accepting  without 
criticism  the  habits  of  our  special  set.  My  family, 
my  immediate  friends,  have  a  diction  of  their 
own.  Plenty  of  other  words,  recognized  as  sound, 
are  known  to  be  current  in  books,  and  to  be  em- 
ployed by  modest  and  intelligent  speakers,  only 
we  do  not  use  them.  Our  set  has  never  said 
"diction,"  or  "current,"  or  "  scope,"  or  "scanty," 
or  "hitherto,"  or  "convey,"  or  "lack."  Far  from 
unusual  as  these  words  are,  to  adopt  them  might 
seem  to  set  me  apart  from  those  whose  intellec- 
tual habits  I  share.  From  this  I  shrink.  I  do  not 
like  to  wear  clothes  suitable  enough  for  others, 
but  not  in  the  style  of  my  own  plain  circle.  Yet 
if  each  one  of  that  circle  does  the  same,  the 
general  shabbiness  is  increased.  The  talk  of  all 
is  made  narrow  enough  to  fit  the  thinnest  there. 
What  we  should  seek  is  to  contribute  to  each  of 
the  little  companies  with  which  our  life  is  bound 
up  a  gently  enlarging  influence,  such  impulses 
23 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

as  will  not  startle  or  create  detachment,  but 
which  may  save  from  humdrum,  routine,  and 
dreary  usualness.  We  cannot  be  really  kind 
without  being  a  little  venturesome.  The  small 
shocks  of  our  increasing  vocabulary  will  in  all 
probability  be  as  helpful  to  our  friends  as  to  our- 
selves. 

Such,  then,  are  the  excellences  of  speech.  If 
we  would  cultivate  ourselves  in  the  use  of  Eng- 
lish, we  must  make  our  daily  talk  accurate,  dar- 
ing, and  full.  I  have  insisted  on  these  points  the 
more  because  in  my  judgment  all  literary  power, 
especially  that  of  busy  men,  is  rooted  in  sound 
speech.  But  though  the  roots  are  here,  the 
growth  is  also  elsewhere.  And  I  pass  to  my 
later  precepts,  which,  if  the  earlier  one  has  been 
laid  well  to  heart,  will  require  only  brief  discus- 
sion. 

Secondly,  "Welcome  every  opportunity  for 
writing."  Important  as  I  have  shown  speech  to 
be,  there  is  much  that  it  cannot  do.  Seldom  can 
it  teach  structure.  Its  space  is  too  small.  Talk* 
ing  moves  in  sentences,  and  rarely  demands  a 
paragraph.  I  make  my  little  remark, — a  dozen 
24 


IN  ENGLISH 

or  two  words,  —  then  wait  for  my  friend  to  hand 
me  back  as  many  more.  This  gentle  exchange 
continues  by  the  hour ;  but  either  of  us  would 
feel  himself  unmannerly  if  he  should  grasp  an 
entire  five  minutes  and  make  it  uninterruptedly 
his.  That  would  not  be  speaking,  but  rather 
speech-making.  The  brief  groupings  of  words 
which  make  up  our  talk  furnish  capital  practice 
in  precision,  boldness,  and  variety ;  but  they  do 
not  contain  room  enough  for  exercising  our  con- 
structive faculties.  Considerable  length  is  neces- 
sary if  we  are  to  learn  how  to  set  forth  B  in 
right  relation  to  A  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  C 
on  the  other  ;  and  while  keeping  each  a  distinct 
part,  are  to  be  able  through  their  smooth  pro- 
gression to  weld  all  the  parts  together  into  a 
compacted  whole.  Such  wholeness  is  what  we 
mean  by  literary  form.  Lacking  it,  any  piece  of 
writing  is  a  failure ;  because,  in  truth,  it  is  not 
a  piece,  but  pieces.  For  ease  of  reading,  or  for 
the  attainment  of  an  intended  effect,  unity  is 
essential  —  the  multitude  of  statements,  anec- 
dotes, quotations,  arguings,  gay  sportings,  and 
appeals,  all  "bending  one  way  their  precious 
25 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

influence."  And  this  dominant  unity  of  the  entire 
piece  obliges  unity  also  in  the  subordinate  parts. 
Not  enough  has  been  done  when  we  have  hud- 
dled together  a  lot  of  wandering  sentences,  and 
penned  them  in  a  paragraph,  or  even  when  we 
have  linked  them  together  by  the  frail  ties  of 
"and,  and."  A  sentence  must  be  compelled  to 
say  a  single  thing  ;  a  paragraph,  a  single  thing ; 
an  essay,  a  single  thing.  Each  part  is  to  be  a 
preliminary  whole,  and  the  total  a  finished  whole. 
But  the  ability  to  construct  one  thing  out  of 
many  does  not  come  by  nature.  It  implies  fe- 
cundity, restraint,  an  eye  for  effects,  the  forecast 
of  finish  while  we  are  still  working  in  the  rough, 
obedience  to  the  demands  of  development,  and 
a  deaf  ear  to  whatever  calls  us  into  the  by-paths 
of  caprice ;  in  short,  it  implies  that  the  good 
writer  is  to  be  an  artist. 

Now  something  of  this  large  requirement 
which  composition  makes,  the  young  writer  in- 
stinctively feels,  and  he  is  terrified.  He  knows  how 
ill-fitted  he  is  to  direct  "toil  cooperant  to  an 
end ; "  and  when  he  sits  down  to  the  desk  and  sees 
the  white  sheet  of  paper  before  him,  he  shivers. 
26 


IN  ENGLISH 

Let  him  know  that  the  shiver  is  a  suitable  part 
of  the  performance.  I  well  remember  the  plea- 
sure with  which,  as  a  young  man,  I  heard  my 
venerable  and  practised  professor  of  rhetoric  say 
that  he  supposed  there  was  no  work  known  to 
man  more  difficult  than  writing.  Up  to  that  time 
I  had  supposed  its  severities  peculiar  to  myself. 
It  cheered  me,  and  gave  me  courage  to  try  again, 
to  learn  that  I  had  all  mankind  for  my  fellow- 
sufferers.  Where  this  is  not  understood,  writing  is 
avoided.  From  such  avoidance  I  would  save  the 
young  writer  by  my  precept  to  seek  every  oppor- 
tunity to  write.  For  most  of  us  this  is  a  new  way 
of  confronting  composition — treating  it  as  an 
opportunity,  a  chance,  and  not  as  a  burden  or 
compulsion.  It  saves  from  slavishness  and  takes 
away  the  drudgery  of  writing,  to  view  each  piece 
of  it  as  a  precious  and  necessary  step  in  the 
pathway  to  power.  To  those  engaged  in  bread- 
winning  employments  these  opportunities  will  be 
few.  Spring  forward  to  them,  then,  using  them 
to  the  full.  Severe  they  will  be  because  so  few, 
for  only  practice  breeds  ease ;  but  on  that  very 
account  let  no  one  of  them  pass  with  merely  a 
27 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

second-best  performance.  If  a  letter  is  to  be 
written  to  a  friend,  a  report  to  an  employer,  a 
communication  to  a  newspaper,  see  that  it  has  a 
beginning,  a  middle,  and  an  end.  The  majority  of 
writings  are  without  these  pleasing  adornments. 
Only  the  great  pieces  possess  them.  Bear  this  in 
mind,  and  win  the  way  to  artistic  composition  by 
noticing  what  should  be  said  first,  what  second, 
and  what  third. 

I  cannot  leave  this  subject,  however,  without 
congratulating  the  present  generation  on  its  ad- 
vantages over  mine.  Children  are  brought  up 
to-day,  in  happy  contrast  with  my  compeers,  to 
feel  that  the  pencil  is  no  instrument  of  torture, 
hardly  indeed  to  distinguish  it  from  the  tongue. 
About  the  time  they  leave  their  mother's  arms 
they  take  their  pen  in  hand.  On  paper  they  are 
encouraged  to  describe  their  interesting  birds, 
friends,  adventures.  Their  written  lessons  are 
almost  as  frequent  as  their  oral,  and  they  learn 
to  write  compositions  while  not  yet  quite  under- 
standing what  they  are  about.  Some  of  these 
fortunate  ones  will,  I  hope,  find  the  language  I 
have  sadly  used  about  the  difficulty  of  writing 
28 


IN  ENGLISH 

extravagant.  And  let  me  say,  too,  that  since  fre- 
quency has  more  to  do  with  ease  of  writing  than 
anything  else,  I  count  the  newspaper  men  lucky 
because  they  are  writing  all  the  time,  and  I  do 
not  think  so  meanly  of  their  product  as  the  pre- 
sent popular  disparagement  would  seem  to  re- 
quire. It  is  hasty  work  undoubtedly,  and  bears 
the  marks  of  haste.  But  in  my  judgment,  at  no 
period  of  the  English  language  has  there  been 
so  high  an  average  of  sensible,  vivacious,  and 
informing  sentences  written  as  appears  in  our 
daily  press.  With  both  good  and  evil  results,  the 
distinction  between  book  literature  and  speech 
literature  is  breaking  down.  Everybody  is  writ- 
ing, apparently  in  verse  and  prose ;  and  if  the 
higher  graces  of  style  do  not  often  appear,  neither 
on  the  other  hand  do  the  ruder  awkwardnesses 
and  obscurities.  A  certain  straightforward  English 
is  becoming  established.  A  whole  nation  is  learn- 
ing the  use  of  its  mother-tongue.  Under  such 
circumstances  it  is  doubly  necessary  that  any 
one  who  is  conscious  of  feebleness  in  his  com- 
mand of  English  should  promptly  and  earnestly 
begin  the  cultivation  of  it. 
29 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

My  third  precept  shall  be,  "Remember  the 
other  person."  I  have  been  urging  self-cultivation 
in  English  as  if  it  concerned  one  person  alone, 
ourself.  But  every  utterance  really  concerns 
two.  Its  aim  is  social.  Its  object  is  communica- 
tion ;  and  while  unquestionably  prompted  half- 
way by  the  desire  to  ease  our  mind  through 
self-expression,  it  still  finds  its  only  justification 
in  the  advantage  somebody  else  will  draw  from 
what  is  said.  Speaking  or  writing  is,  therefore, 
everywhere  a  double-ended  process.  It  springs 
from  me,  it  penetrates  him ;  and  both  of  these 
ends  need  watching.  Is  what  I  say  precisely 
what  I  mean  ?  That  is  an  important  question. 
Is  what  I  say  so  shaped  that  it  can  readily  be 
assimilated  by  him  who  hears  ?  This  is  a  question 
of  quite  as  great  consequence,  and  much  more 
likely  to  be  forgotten.  We  are  so  full  of  our- 
selves that  we  do  not  remember  the  other  person. 
Helter-skelter  we  pour  forth  our  unaimed  words 
merely  for  our  personal  relief,  heedless  whether 
they  help  or  hinder  him  whom  they  still  purport 
to  address.  For  most  of  us  are  grievously  lacking 
in  imagination,  which  is  the  ability  to  go  outside 
30 


IN  ENGLISH 

ourselves  and  take  on  the  conditions  of  another 
mind.  Yet  this  is  what  the  literary  artist  is  al- 
ways doing.  He  has  at  once  the  ability  to  see  for 
himself  and  the  ability  to  see  himself  as  others 
see  him.  He  can  lead  two  lives  as  easily  as  one 
life  ;  or  rather,  he  has  trained  himself  to  consider 
that  other  life  as  of  more  importance  than  his, 
and  to  reckon  his  comfort,  likings,  and  labors  as 
quite  subordinated  to  the  service  of  that  other. 
All  serious  literary  work  contains  within  it  this 
readiness  to  bear  another's  burden.  I  must  write 
with  pains,  that  he  may  read  with  ease.  I  must 

Find  out  men's  wants  and  wills, 
And  meet  them  there. 

As  I  write,  I  must  unceasingly  study  what  is  the 
line  of  least  intellectual  resistance  along  which 
my  thought  may  enter  the  differently  constituted 
mind  ;  and  to  that  line  I  must  subtly  adjust,  with- 
out enfeebling,  my  meaning.  Will  this  combina- 
tion of  words  or  that  make  the  meaning  clear  ? 
Will  this  order  of  presentation  facilitate  swift- 
ness of  apprehension,  or  will  it  clog  the  move- 
ment ?  What  temperamental  perversities  in  me 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

must  be  set  aside  in  order  to  render  my  reader's 
approach  to  what  I  would  tell  him  pleasant  ? 
What  temperamental  perversities  in  him  must  be 
accepted  by  me  as  fixed  facts,  conditioning  all  I 
say  ?  These  are  the  questions  the  skillful  writer 
is  always  asking. 

And  these  questions,  as  will  have  been  per- 
ceived already,  are  moral  questions  no  less  than 
literary.  That  golden  rule  of  generous  service 
by  which  we  do  for  others  what  we  would  have 
them  do  for  us,  is  a  rule  of  writing  too.  Every 
writer  who  knows  his  trade  perceives  that  he  is 
a  servant,  that  it  is  his  business  to  endure  hard- 
ship if  only  his  reader  may  win  freedom  from 
toil,  that  no  impediment  to  that  reader's  under- 
standing is  too  slight  to  deserve  diligent  attention, 
that  he  has  consequently  no  right  to  let  a  single 
sentence  slip  from  him  unsocialized  —  I  mean, 
a  sentence  which  cannot  become  as  naturally 
another's  possession  as  his  own.  In  the  very  act 
of  asserting  himself,  he  lays  aside  what  is  dis- 
tinctively his.  And  because  these  qualifications 
of  the  writer  are  moral  qualifications,  they  can 
never  be  completely  fulfilled  so  long  as  we  live 
32 


IN  ENGLISH 

and  write.  We  may  continually  approximate 
them  more  nearly,  but  there  will  still  always  be 
possible  an  alluring  refinement  of  exercise  be- 
yond. The  world  of  the  literary  artist  and  the 
moral  man  is  interesting  through  its  inexhausti- 
bility :  and  he  who  serves  his  fellows  by  writing 
or  by  speech  is  artist  and  moral  man  in  one. 
Writing  a  letter  is  a  simple  matter,  but  it  is  a 
moral  matter  and  an  artistic ;  for  it  may  be  done 
either  with  imagination  or  with  raw  self-centred- 
ness.  What  things  will  my  correspondent  wish 
to  know  ?  How  can  I  transport  him  out  of  his 
properly  alien  surroundings  into  the  vivid  impres- 
sions which  now  are  mine  ?  How  can  I  tell  all  I 
long  to  tell  and  still  be  sure  the  telling  will  be  for 
him  as  lucid  and  delightful  as  for  me  ?  Remember 
the  other  person,  I  say.  Do  not  become  absorbed 
in  yourself.  Your  interests  cover  only  the  half  of 
any  piece  of  writing ;  the  other  man's  less  visible 
half  is  necessary  to  complete  yours.  And  if  I  have 
here  discussed  writing  more  than  speech,  that  is 
merely  because  when  we  speak  we  utter  our  first 
thoughts,  but  when  we  write,  our  second, —  or 
better  still,  our  fourth  ;  and  in  the  greater  delib- 
33 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

eration  which  writing  affords  I  have  felt  that  the 
demands  of  morality  and  art,  which  are  univer- 
sally imbedded  in  language,  could  be  more  dis- 
tinctly perceived.  Yet  none  the  less  truly  do  we 
need  to  talk  for  the  other  person  than  to  write 
for  him. 

But  there  remains  a  fourth  weighty  precept, 
and  one  not  altogether  detachable  from  the  third. 
It  is  this  :  "  Lean  upon  your  subject."  We  have 
seen  how  the  user  of  language,  whether  in  writ- 
ing or  in  speaking,  works  for  himself ;  how  he 
works  for  another  individual  too  ;  but  there  is 
one  more  for  whom  his  work  is  performed,  one 
of  greater  consequence  than  any  person,  and  that 
is  his  subject.  From  this  comes  his  primary  call. 
Those  who  in  their  utterance  fix  their  thoughts 
on  themselves,  or  on  other  selves,  never  reach 
power.  That  resides  in  the  subject.  There  we 
must  dwell  with  it,  and  be  content  to  have  no 
other  strength  than  its.  When  the  frightened 
school-boy  sits  down  to  write  about  Spring,  he 
cannot  imagine  where  the  thoughts  which  are  to 
make  up  his  piece  are  to  come  from.  He  cudgels 
his  brain  for  ideas.  He  examines  his  pen-point,  the 
34 


IN  ENGLISH 

curtains,  his  inkstand,  to  see  if  perhaps  ideas 
may  not  be  had  from  these.  He  wonders  what 
his  teacher  will  wish  him  to  say,  and  he  tries  to 
recall  how  the  passage  sounded  in  the  Third 
Reader.  In  every  direction  but  one  he  turns,  and 
that  is  the  direction  where  lies  the  prime  mover 
of  his  toil,  his  subject.  Of  that  he  is  afraid.  Now, 
what  I  want  to  make  evident  is  that  this  subject 
is  not  in  reality  the  foe,  but  the  friend.  It  is  his 
only  helper.  His  composition  is  not  to  be,  as  he 
seems  to  suppose,  a  mass  of  his  laborious  in- 
ventions, but  it  is  to  be  made  up  exclusively  of 
what  the  subject  dictates.  He  has  only  to  attend. 
At  present  he  stands  in  his  own  way,  making 
such  a  din  with  his  private  anxieties  that  he  can- 
not hear  the  rich  suggestions  of  the  subject.  He 
is  bothered  with  considering  how  he  feels,  or  what 
he  or  somebody  else  will  like  to  see  on  his  paper. 
This  is  debilitating  business.  He  must  lean  on 
his  subject,  if  he  would  have  his  writing  strong, 
and  busy  himself  with  what  it  says,  rather  than 
with  what  he  would  say.  Matthew  Arnold,  in  the 
important  preface  to  his  poems  of  1853,  contrast- 
ing the  artistic  methods  of  Greek  poetry  and 
35 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

modern  poetry,  sums  up  the  teaching  of  the 
Greeks  in  these  words  :  "  All  depends  upon  the 
subject;  choose  a  fitting  action,  penetrate  your- 
self with  the  feeling  of  its  situations  ;  this  done, 
everything  else  will  follow."  And  he  calls  atten- 
tion to  the  self -assertive  and  scatter-brained  habits 
of  our  time.  "  How  different  a  way  of  thinking 
from  this  is  ours  !  We  can  hardly  at  the  present 
day  understand  what  Menander  meant,  when  he 
told  a  man  who  inquired  as  to  the  progress  of  his 
comedy  that  he  had  finished  it,  not  having  yet  writ- 
ten a  single  line,  because  he  had  constructed  the 
action  of  it  in  his  mind.  A  modern  critic  would 
have  assured  him  that  the  merit  of  his  piece 
depended  on  the  brilliant  things  which  arose 
under  his  pen  as  he  went  along.  I  verily  think 
that  the  majority  of  us  do  not  in  our  hearts 
believe  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  total  im- 
pression to  be  derived  from  a  poem,  or  to  be 
demanded  from  a  poet.  We  permit  the  poet  to 
select  any  action  he  pleases,  and  to  suffer  that 
action  to  go  as  it  will,  provided  he  gratifies  us 
with  occasional  bursts  of  fine  writing,  and  with 
a  shower  of  isolated  thoughts  and  images." 
36 


IN  ENGLISH 

Great  writers  put  themselves  and  their  personal 
imaginings  out  of  sight.  Their  writing  becomes 
a  kind  of  transparent  window  on  which  reality 
is  reflected,  and  through  which  people  see,  not 
them,  but  that  of  which  they  write.  How  much 
we  know  of  Shakespeare's  characters !  How  little 
of  Shakespeare  !  Of  him  that  might  almost  be  said 
which  Isaiah  said  of  God,  "  He  hideth  himself." 
The  best  writer  is  the  best  mental  listener,  the 
one  who  peers  farthest  into  his  matter  and  most 
fully  heeds  its  behests.  Preeminently  obedient 
is  the  strong  writer,  —  refinedly,  energetically 
obedient.  I  once  spent  a  day  with  a  great  novelist 
when  the  book  which  subsequently  proved  his 
masterpiece  was  only  half  written.  I  praised  his 
mighty  hero,  but  said  I  should  think  the  life  of  an 
author  would  be  miserable  who,  having  created 
a  character  so  huge,  now  had  him  in  hand  and  must 
find  something  for  him  to  do.  My  friend  seemed 
puzzled  by  my  remark,  but  after  a  moment's  pause 
said,  "  I  don't  think  you  know  how  we  work.  I 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  character.  Now  that 
he  is  created,  he  will  act  as  he  will." 

And  such  docility  must  be  cultivated  by  every 
37 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

one  who  would  write  well,  such  strenuous  do- 
cility. Of  course  there  must  be  energy  in  plenty ; 
the  imagination  which  I  described  in  my  third 
section,  the  passion  for  solid  form  as  in  my 
second,  the  disciplined  and  daring  powers  as  in 
my  first ;  but  all  these  must  be  ready  at  a 
moment's  notice  to  move  where  the  matter  calls 
and  to  acknowledge  that  all  their  worth  is  to  be 
drawn  from  it.  Religion  is  only  enlarged  good 
sense,  and  the  words  of  Jesus  apply  as  well  to 
the  things  of  earth  as  of  heaven.  I  do  not  know 
where  we  could  find  a  more  compendious  state- 
ment of  what  is  most  important  for  one  to  learn 
who  would  cultivate  himself  in  English  than  the 
simple  saying  in  which  Jesus  announces  the 
source  of  his  power.  "  The  word  which  ye  hear 
is  not  mine,  but  the  Father's  which  sent  me." 
Whoever  can  use  such  words  will  be  a  noble 
speaker  indeed. 

These,  then,  are  the  fundamental  precepts 
which  every  one  must  heed  who  would  command 
our  beautiful  English  language.  There  is,  of 
course,  a  fifth.  I  hardly  need  to  name  it ;  for  it 
always  follows  after,  whatever  others  precede. 
38 


IN  ENGLISH 

It  is  that  we  should  do  the  work,  and  not  think 
about  it ;  do  it  day  after  day  and  not  grow  weary 
in  bad  doing.  Early  and  often  we  must  be  busy, 
and  be  satisfied  to  have  a  great  deal  of  labor 
produce  but  a  small  result.  I  am  told  that  early 
in  life  John  Morley,  wishing  to  engage  in  jour- 
nalism, wrote  an  editorial  and  sent  it  to  a  paper 
every  day  for  nearly  a  year  before  he  succeeded 
in  getting  one  accepted.  We  all  know  what  a 
power  he  became  in  London  journalism.  I  will 
not  vouch  for  the  truth  of  this  story,  but  I  am 
sure  an  ambitious  author  is  wise  who  writes 
a  weekly  essay  for  his  stove.  Publication  is  of 
little  consequence,  so  long  as  one  is  getting  one's 
self  hammered  into  shape. 

But  before  I  close  this  address,  let  me  acknow- 
ledge that  in  it  I  have  neglected  a  whole  class  of 
helpful  influences,  probably  quite  as  important 
as  any  I  have  discussed.  Purposely  I  have  passed 
them  by.  Because  I  wished  to  show  what  we  can 
do  for  ourselves,  I  have  everywhere  assumed 
that  our  cultivation  in  English  is  to  be  effected 
by  naked  volition  and  a  kind  of  dead  lift.  These 
are  mighty  agencies,  but  seldom  in  this  inter- 
39 


SELF-CULTIVATION 

locked  world  do  they  work  well  alone.  They  are 
strongest  when  backed  by  social  suggestion  and 
unconscious  custom.  Ordinarily  the  good  speaker 
is  he  who  keeps  good  company,  but  increases 
the  helpful  influence  of  that  company  by  con- 
stant watchfulness  along  the  lines  I  have  marked 
out.  So  supplemented,  my  teaching  is  true.  By 
itself  it  is  not  true.  It  needs  the  supplementation 
of  others.  Let  him  who  would  speak  or  write 
well  seek  out  good  speakers  and  writers.  Let 
him  live  in  their  society,  — for  the  society  of  the 
greatest  writers  is  open  to  the  most  secluded, — 
let  him  feel  the  ease  of  their  excellence,  the  in- 
genuity, grace,  and  scope  of  their  diction,  and  he 
will  soon  find  in  himself  capacities  whose  devel- 
opment may  be  aided  by  the  precepts  I  have 
given.  Most  of  us  catch  better  than  we  learn. 
We  take  up  unconsciously  from  our  surroundings 
what  we  cannot  altogether  create.  All  this  should 
be  remembered,  and  we  should  keep  ourselves 
exposed  to  the  wholesome  words  of  our  fellow- 
men.  Yet  our  own  exertions  will  not  on  that 
account  be  rendered  less  important.  We  may 
largely  choose  the  influences  to  which  we  sub- 
40 


IN  ENGLISH 

mit ;  we  may  exercise  a  selective  attention  among 
these  influences  ;  we  may  enjoy,  oppose,  modify, 
or  diligently  ingraft  what  is  conveyed  to  us, — 
and  for  doing  any  one  of  these  things  rationally 
we  must  be  guided  by  some  clear  aim.  Such  aims, 
altogether  essential  even  if  subsidiary,  I  have 
sought  to  supply  ;  and  I  would  reiterate  that  he 
who  holds  them  fast  may  become  superior  to 
linguistic  fortune  and  be  the  wise  director  of  his 
sluggish  and  obstinate  tongue.  It  is  as  certain  as 
anything  can  be  that  faithful  endeavor  will  bring 
expertness  in  the  use  of  English.  If  we  are  watch- 
ful of  our  speech,  making  our  words  continually 
more  minutely  true,  free,  and  resourceful ;  if  we 
look  upon  our  occasions  of  writing  as  opportuni- 
ties for  the  deliberate  work  of  unified  construc- 
tion ;  if  in  all  our  utterances  we  think  of  him  who 
hears  as  well  as  of  him  who  speaks  ;  and  above  all, 
if  we  fix  the  attention  of  ourselves  and  our  hearers 
on  the  matter  we  talk  about  and  so  let  ourselves 
be  supported  by  our  subject,  —  we  shall  make  a 
daily  advance  not  only  in  English  study,  but  in 
personal  power,  in  general  serviceableness,  and  in 
consequent  delight. 

41 


OUTLINE 

THE  MASTERY  OF  ENGLISH  AS  A  TOOL 

1.  English  study  has  four  aims I 

2.  The  special  importance  of  literary  power  ...  4 

3.  A  strange  illusion  in  regard  to  it 6 

LOOK  WELL  TO  YOUR  SPEECH 

4.  The  opportunity  of  oral  practice 7 

5.  Speech  and  great  epochs  of  literature    ....    8 

6.  Self-cultivation  chiefly  through  speech    .     .    .    .  i  r 

7.  Good  English  is  exact  English 12 

8.  Forcible  speech  possesses  dash 15 

9.  Daring  and  exactitude  not  inconsistent .    .    .     .17 

10.  The  need  of  a  wide  range  of  words 19 

n.  Adopt  two  new  words  each  week 21 

12.  Let  them  be  from  approved  usage 22 

WELCOME  EVERY  OPPORTUNITY  FOR 
WRITING 

13.  Writing  compels  unity  of  thought 24 

14.  It  should  be  treated  as  an  opportunity    ....  26 

15.  The  new  demand  for  straightforward  English.     .  28 

REMEMBER  THE  OTHER  PERSON 

16.  Every  utterance  concerns  two  persons    ....  30 

17.  Good  writing  is  a  generous  service 32 

LEAN  UPON  YOUR  SUBJECT 

1 8.  Strenuously  obey  the  suggestions  of  your  subject    34 

WORK  DAY  AFTER  DAY  UNWEARYINGLY 

19.  Whatever  precedes,  much  practice  must  follow  .  38 

SEEK  THE  COMPANY  OF  GOOD  SPEAKERS 
AND  WRITERS 

20.  Let  suggestion  and  custom  assist 39 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .    A 


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